##VIDEO ID:TabLp8PR8Zw## we do not okay then let's get right into things uh we have the ssds report if you want to welcome everyone back you may yeah before I get into that um welcome back to another great school year we've we are already in our second week uh and it's been a really really positive opening uh it was exciting last Monday to have all of the staff returned they participated in some really meaningful professional development we had our ninth graders and our other new students here for a new student orientation on Wednesday uh and by Friday afternoon I think everyone was Finding their way to classes pretty well and to their buses uh so it was it was a really really positive start to the week um and we're often running in our second week but it's it's just it's been such a a nice vibe to have the building filled again it's nice to have the summer to get things done but you can only prepare for so long so uh and our construction projects are still moving along uh so those will you know be wrapping up at various points of the next month or two so uh we uh twice a year we have to give our ssds our student safety data system uh summary report and this period is for January 1st 2024 through June 30th 2024 we had three incidents of violence two incidents of vandalism uh zero incidents of weapons and 24 instances of substance abuse reported and with regard to our Hib incidents of the HIV investigations we conducted four uh were not confirmed to be HIV they were alleged HIV but found not to be a case of HIV and six were confirmed uh cases of HIV as a result of the investigation and that's all I have great thanks before we start the committee reports just want to Echo the sentiments of Dr J uh last week several of us had the opportunity several of board members to meet with some of the new teachers and staff uh at their annual lunch and and that went great A lot of happy face a lot of happy people to be here and I certainly Express that uh we were happy they chose us as much as we chose them because uh we know this day and age it's tougher and tougher to get teachers and U for whatever reason there's a downturn in the teacher desire or desire to become teachers so with that shortage we're happy they're choosing us and they were certainly excited and we're fully staffed and that was great and we had the convocation last Monday and everyone was as happy as they could be starting school so certainly from all indications was a great positive start and hopefully it'll be a great year okay education uh thank you Mr President the education committee met on August 29th uh the topics that we addressed included to uh address the new and revised curriculum Dr JWT reviewed the courses which will be on our September 17th board agenda for approval en course will be updated with the new curriculum and once finalized the link will be provided to all the board members for review which I believe should be this week or so uh a few courses that were written this summer will not run until 25 26 school year but they're on for approval now uh a new approach is used is being used to get an advanced start in the curriculum writing so the curriculum will be ready to go for the following year uh Dr JW also highlighted new counseling courses that were developed to formalized curriculum for the counseling department uh they would be offered to 9th and 10th graders for college preparation and career Readiness Mr Sabino explained that the courses explained the courses to the committee and we discussed the courses and asked for clarifying questions uh but again that stuff will be uh online for you to be able to review uh and that if you have any questions regarding any of the courses feel free to either contact myself or the administration uh to address any questions you may have um Miss Cara then uh discussed the opening day professional development um that was uh created for the faculty and staff that were structured around artificial intelligence increased student engagement and overall Wellness uh she also shared with us the three-day schedule uh and showed highlights of some of the presentations our guest speakers sessions that were offered uh and Department initiatives and faculty involvement in presenting the PD sessions some of the faculty expressed interest in sessions that they were unable to attend and as a result the administration's looking at possibly having some lunch and learn sessions throughout the year so the faculty can take advantage of uh some of those uh professional development offerings uh we also had a discussion regarding the attendance followup uh as a followup to our previous discussions Mr laera and Mr Sabino provided additional information on the student impact of the past fail practice for excessive absences uh highlighting the successful College acceptances uh for these students they also shared with us the noticeable Improvement uh in attendance for the majority of the students uh who were put on notice of an up of an impending credit loss uh Mr Sabino also discussed students with absences due to illness and the use of home instruction to assist those students um and the committee then had a following uh or had a discussion that continued after that uh as far as upcoming Board of Education presentations Dr JT uh discussed the board presentation schedule uh with us the district assessment report will be given at our next meeting on the 17th uh the New Jersey um uh uh the school climate um and culture survey results uh will be on the o October 1st meeting and then the strategic planning update will be presented at the October 15th meeting so the next three meetings uh plan that we will have significant presentations on on those topics the district assessments the school culture and climate and then the Strategic plan uh lastly we touched on some upcoming uh topics just for the committee to be aware of uh including the discussion around our cell phone policies and cell phone use in the schools uh as well as uh steam uh and Design Lab as far as uh potential curriculum that the Administration has been investigating by visiting uh with some other schools that have these type of programs so we'll be covering that in the education committee as well and then we also reviewed a memo from the New Jersey Department of Education that came out actually the day before arm meeting regarding cell phone policies that had some shared links and some other information and then we also got some other sample policies from uh some other districts that are out there uh but as far as the education committee's review of this we're actually going to start by looking at our own policies and currently and how they're being utilized and what if any uh updates or additions or modifications might be necessary to recommend to the board from those particular or from that particular review so uh that concludes my report any member of the educ members of the education committee have anything they want to add okay any other board members have any questions um negotiations report uh I a couple months ago we announced that we had uh struck a an agreement or understanding of an agreement with the teachers union um for the next four years um part of that agreement besides the increase in salar some language but also a significant increase uh for the next two years in the extracurricular and athletic um stiens um and I understand that a presentation of the schedule um was uh presented a bit ago I'm not sure exactly how long ago um and we're waiting for the results of those uh of whether that's acceptable or not um I think it's fair to say that we placed a a very high priority the negotiations committee placed a high priority on making sure that those stiens were increased so that we could um compensate the teachers that were volunteering at a higher level in order to get um not better but even better representation of where we are or better compensation for the teachers those positions so we anticipate uh an approval of that schedule very quickly if not I guess we'll have to um open negotiations again um with the entire negotiations committee so I'll update of the next meeting that uh Mr bur just any questions followup comment on that first of all I wanted to uh uh thank the administration and Miss Carol and and other folks that worked on uh the analysis uh of the uh stipend for athletics and our extracurricular co-curricular activities um we've been discussing this for many years about the need to make some adjustments and they did a very thorough job of um you know not only analyzing the current status of of um how we are structured here but also looking at how we compare with other districts because it had been pointed out to us particularly from some of our athletic um U quarters that we were not necessarily competitive uh with some of our our um uh other districts in the area uh and so this effort has been to try to at least get us in the ballpark uh if if not you know in the ballpark with these other districts so that we're providing um you know the the Equitable type of compensation that is appropriate given the amount of time uh energy and effort that uh all of our teachers put into all of these activities recognizing that we probably will never be able to get to the point where they're actually adequately compensated for the amount of work that they put in not only the time that they put in here and the hours that it's based on but the hours they put in at home uh the hours they put in for communication it is clearly um you know there's a lot more to it than just the hours on the paper so uh I just think it's important that um our faculty our coaches and our community recognize that uh we've heard you uh the board and the Administration has done their homework to put uh the necessary plans into place to be able to take this step forward and I just want to congratulate everyone on the negotiations committee um who has helped bring it to this point uh I just hope that we can bring it across the Finish Line in due course anyone else okay great uh first public comment period will be limited to agenda items for this meeting only the second public comment period will be open to any any topic all comments are limited to 5 minutes if you desire to have a comment more than welcome please sign in at the uh desk in the front with your name and uh the town that you're in are there any comments for the first public comment period yeah oh please come up sorry don't be shy yeah please sorry first timer yes um hi everybody my name is rxan nin and I am a junior at wung Hills um I know on the agenda today I was told by Mr berelli is um going to be discussing the approval of alam mode which is hopefully going to be watch Young hills's new club um the fashion magazine um and I just wanted to come up here and say as the hopefully future co-founder and other co-founder there Sarah LaVine um we would really look forward to this if it was approved and we really foresee this unifying um the community at Watchung Hills and I know all my peers are looking forward to this if this is something that can be achieved um because it will definitely benefit our community as a whole and get some school spirit up um but yeah I just wanted to come up here and introduce ourselves and just say what we're here for so thank you so thank you so much for coming to speak to us about that it is not on tonight's agenda this was something that came up last year I will follow up with Mr bartelli Mr bartelli just to see where we are we were revising our um Club approval process so that it occurs once a year um I do know though this was something that came up last year that you had submitted so I will follow up with him because I believe since that was part of last year's submission process that we will be looking at this um it's probably in the next month or so but I will confirm that with him and ask him to follow up with you okay normally don't have a board meeting this soon after school starts so we're kind of playing catchup right now with that um but somebody will absolutely get back to you on that and uh I you know I looked at the the club proposal um I think it was last spring and you know I commend you guys for starting something that you know we don't necessarily already have I do think we were talking about if that would then this why have to follow up with Mr Bellion um because I know it's it's about fashion and perhaps fashion a fashion magazine that you want to publish so I think we were actually going to look see too if that um could be part of one of our existing clubs but don't quote me on that we wanted to see the best way to allow you um to move forward with that so thank you though for coming to introduce yourselves to the board thank you so much for listening thank you anyone else don't be shy okay see no uh further comments I now close the first session for public comment again there'll be a second public comment period where anything can be uh commented upon uh do we have any board discussion for future action it okay uh Mr President I'd like I would like to move items A1 through A3 any comments or discussion with respect to those roll call please Mr maio Mr Gall yes M Lee Mr Meek yes Mr Morrison yes Mr obber yes Miss pra M chur yes and Mr Burber yes motions carried uh Mr President I'd like to move items C1 through C8 comments or questions on those roll call Mr St Mr maio Mr Gall yes yes Mr Miss Lee merich yes Mr Morrison yes over CA M chour yes and Mr bber yes carry and Mr President I'd like to move items D1 through d10 comments or questions uh Mr President I'd just like to uh you know call out the donations that we received uh from pomponio F Food Services from the touchdown Club uh and from the um PTO uh all in support of our faculty and staff appreciation barbecue so we greatly appreciate those donations absolutely I heard it was a great barbecue sorry I was not able to attend but I heard everyone had a great time so again thank you to those donors all call Mr maio Mr Gall yes Lee mayor yes Morrison yes sober rasa chur yes and Mr Burber yes motions carry oh that came up quickly we now have the second opportunity for public comment yeah moving along um again this opportunity to discuss anything or to comment upon anything do we have any one who'd like to make a comment at this time see you none I'm going to close that second opportunity for public comment uh as far as other business concerned uh to items I just want to remind everyone uh the uh State Convention is next month or so I think you've all received emails so just confirm with whoever we're supposed to be confirming with whether you're attending and when you're going to be there and just a reminder we do have the board retreat next week uh some of you have reached out to me with topics you wanted to discuss if anyone has any other specific time topics we can certainly put that on the agenda as well and uh after that meeting we'll do a tour of the building so everyone can see oh good all the new uh you know the rooms that are done in that's so what we had talked about today is um having dinner available at 5:45 6 o'clock the meeting will start we'll do 600 to about 7:30 and then 7:30 we'll do the walk around oh because we want wanted Chris to be here yeah I was gonna oh so you know what maybe do we want to flip it we want to start with a tour that would make life a little EAS we can start that we'll just tell mark because Mark zmer is coming so we'll tell Mark to just come a little later yeah and what we can discuss I mean are people a what's the earliest folks can get here it's just easier to do it now than via email 8:30 a right um because do we want to do the tour at 5:30 do we want to plan the tour at 5:30 and then we'll come right back from that eat dinner and and get started okay good okay all right excellent uh anyone else with any other items they want to just go ahead Carol um The Star Ledger had an article about the regionalization study on um actually about the grants for it on August 27th I'm wondering look of everyone's face if my generation is the only one that still reads the Star Ledger but no oh okay oh I didn't I missed it when you sent it um the one question that I'm getting is why is why are the grant coming from the Department of Community Affairs not the Department of Education because that's the way the legislation was written um the and because originally this whole concept grew out of um a prior regionalization effort that was centered around municipalities and shared services that way so that's really how it ended up over there is because DCA has been running these type of evaluations so instead of trying to give it to the Department of Education that has no experience in overseeing these programs they put it in the office within Community Affairs that is actually overseeing these regionalization efforts does that Mak are you following that or no no that's the the because the original program was the LEAP program uh which is the local uh local efficiencies uh grant program that they had uh and that was really really around municipalities and trying to get municipalities to consider um shared services or merging um and so that's that's where this all actually started so it's just a natural extension from what started out as a look at just municipalities will they be coordinating with the Department of Education or is it a totally well Department of I mean the based on the legislation the report that we that will be created from uh the shared services regionalization workg group that has to be submitted to the Department of Education right so it's it's really the management of the process as opposed to they're not providing any direction or or dictates other than what the requirements are that must be fulfilled as part of the report sure just related to that uh the the next meeting of the shared services regionalization committee will be on the 30th of September um so we were trying to navigate all the different Municipal calendars School District calendars holidays back to school efforts and that's kind of the one day that actually popped out whether or nothing was scheduled so uh for those that are involved we sent out a notice on that and at that point in time we'll be reviewing the work that has occurred over the course of the summer uh as well as talking about next steps with our own uh involvement with Community engagement uh and timeline moving forward great thank you anyone else I'll entertain a motion to adjourn all those on favor I we are adjourned it's a record